War to the Knife: Bleeding Kansas, 1854–1861

By Thomas Goodrich

This history shines a light on America’s “first civil war”: the bloody conflict in Kansas Territory between abolitionists and proslavery extremists.

Long before the secession crisis at Fort Sumter ignited the War between the States, men fought and died on the prairies of Kansas over the incendiary issue of slavery. The bitter conflict was described in the Atchison Squatter Sovereign newspaper as “war to the knife and knife to the hilt.”

In 1854 a shooting war developed between proslavery men from Missouri and free-staters in Kansas over control of the territory. The prize was whether Kansas would become a slave or a free state when admitted to the Union, a question that could decide the balance of power in Washington. 

War to the Knife is an absorbing account of this bloody episode in our nation's past, told in the unforgettable words of the men and women involved: Robert E. Lee, William Tecumseh Sherman, Sara Robinson, Jeb Stuart, Abraham Lincoln, William F. Cody, and John Brown—the abolitionist who was hailed by some as a prophet, and denounced as a madman by others.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9780811766999

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WAR TO THE KNIFE

Also by the author:

Black Flag

Bloody Dawn

Scalp Dance

WAR TO THE KNIFE

Bleeding Kansas, 1854–1861

Thomas Goodrich

STACKPOLE

BOOKS

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Copyright © 1998 by Stackpole Books

First Stackpole Books paperback edition 2017

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Goodrich, Th.

War to the knife : bleeding Kansas, 1857–1861 / Thomas Goodrich

         p.       cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p.     ) and index.

ISBN 0-8117-1921-9

1. Kansas—Politics and government—1854–1861. 2. Kansas—History, Military. 3. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Causes. I. Title.

ISBN 0-8117-1921-9 (cloth)

ISBN 978-0-8117-3736-4 (paperback : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-0-8117-6699-9 (electronic)

frn_fig_003 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Prologue—December 2, 1859

Chapter 1Islands in the Night

Chapter 2In Awful Earnest

Chapter 3To a Bloody Issue

Chapter 4I Have Seen Suffering

Chapter 5When Kansas Bleeds

Chapter 6Jerusalem in Heaps

Chapter 7Ordained from Eternity

Chapter 8The Dogs of War

Chapter 9Deliver Me from Honor

Chapter 10Through the Lifting Smoke

Chapter 11Minister of the Devil

Chapter 12Bright Morning, Glorious Day

Epilogue—The Stranger

Notes

Bibliography

List of Illustrations

Execution of John Brown

Charles Robinson

William F. Cody

David Atchison

Sara Robinson

James Lane

Pardee Butler

Julia Lovejoy

Sam Wood

Wilson Shannon

George Washington Brown

Samuel Jones

Shalor Eldridge and Family

Ruins of the Free State Hotel

John Brown

James Redpath

John Brown Jr.

Saunders Farm

Henry Titus

Free-State Cannon Crew

Florella Adair

Charles Leonhardt

Battle of Hickory Point

Legislative Hall, Lecompton

John J. Ingalls

Leavenworth

James Montgomery

Marais des Cygnes Massacre

Harpers Ferry

Charles White

Capture of John Brown

To Maurine

I know of no transaction in human history which has been covered up with such abundant lying. . . .

—Abolitionist Theodore Parker, 1856

PROLOGUE — DECEMBER 2, 1859

HE WAS OLD FOR HIS DAY. HIS LONG WHITE BEARD AND DEEPLY FURROWED FACE readily revealed a life far beyond its prime. A man his age looked strangely out of place here in the field among so much youth and vitality. A man his age should have been rocking away this winter’s morn by a warm fireplace, enjoying his last days with a grandson on one knee and a granddaughter on the other. Instead, the old man was being hauled in the back of an open freight wagon through a stubble field in Virginia. The seat beneath him was a rude wooden coffin.

All was silent now. The buzzing and laughter of the soldiers, the shouting and commands of the officers that had filled the air this morning, had suddenly ceased. Among the waiting hundreds, anxious eyes were now focused on the wagon and the gaunt figure in black as they approached. With quiet surprise, the man in the rumbling wagon looked up and scanned the scene surrounding him.

I was very near the old man, a reporter for the New York Tribune wrote, and scrutinized him closely.

He seemed to take in the whole scene at a glance, and he straightened himself up proudly, as if to set to the soldiers an example of a soldier’s courage. The only motion he made, beyond a swaying to and fro of his body, was . . . [a] patting of his knees with his hands. . . . As he came upon an eminence . . . he cast his eyes over the beautiful landscape and followed the windings of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance. He looked up earnestly at the sun and sky, and all about, and then remarked, This is a beautiful country.¹

The old man’s eyes returned to earth. Looming just ahead, the great, grim monster stood ready to receive him. The old man’s million-mile wander of fifty-nine years was now but a footfall and a heartbeat from journey’s end. A rogue’s death on the gallows awaited. Most men, old or young, might have trembled at the sight; most men might have bowed down in terror at the fate awaiting them. The old man was not like most men, however, and far from being afraid, he would not have traded places with anyone in the world. As he well knew, he was bound for God—and Glory. His final battle in the Army of the Lord was being waged, and victory was within reach. He would not disappoint either himself or his Maker.

At last the wagon drew up beside the scaffold and halted. Two men quickly moved forward to help the old man down. Gazing up the steps at the platform momentarily, the victim did not hesitate, but led the way in his bright red slippers as calmly and quietly as if he had been going to his dinner, noted a young soldier nearby.²

There is no faltering in his step, another witness added when the old man reached the top, but firmly and erect he stands amid the almost breathless lines of soldiery that surround him. With a graceful motion of his pinioned right arm he takes the slouched hat from his head and carelessly casts it upon the platform by his side.³

Recorded another spectator to the drama:

He stood upon the scaffold but a short time . . . when . . . the white cap [was] drawn over his face, the noose adjusted and attached to the hook above, and he was moved, blindfolded, a few steps forward. It was curious to note how the instincts of nature operated to make him careful in putting out his feet, as if afraid he would walk off the scaffold. The man who stood unblenched on the brink of eternity was afraid of falling a few feet to the ground!

Everything was now in readiness. The sheriff asked the prisoner if he should give him a private signal before the fatal moment. He replied, in a voice that sounded to me unnaturally natural . . . that it did not matter to him, if only they would not keep him too long waiting. . . . I was close to him, and watched him narrowly to see if I could detect any signs of shrinking or trembling in his person, but there was none. Once I thought I saw his knees tremble, but it was only the wind blowing his loose trousers.⁴

At length, all departed the platform except the old man and the sheriff. While the military companies marched and countermarched into final positions, others stared in awe as the victim stood quietly on the trapdoor with a hood over his head and a noose around his neck. Among those who watched was another old man, one with long white hair, who was destined to fire the first cannon shot of the coming conflagration a year and a half hence. Also on the field this day was a handsome young actor whose pistol report at Ford’s theater would prove the last and most tragic bullet fired of the war. These two men and scores of others around them, who had cut slivers from the gallows as souvenirs, knew that they were now a part of history in the making—that something mighty was about to occur over which they would have no more control than would a reed against the wind.

When all was in place, a signal was given, and the sheriff descended the steps. Reaching for a sharp hatchet nearby, the officer glanced up at the old man one last time. As before, the prisoner stood patiently waiting, not a trace of fear visible even though he was for the first time in his long life completely alone. Gripping the hatchet firmly, the sheriff eyed the rope that held the trapdoor. Then, with one swift motion, the blade flashed forward. With a loud screech, the trapdoor opened, and the old man in black came down with a sickening thud. The rough rope dug viciously into his neck—his face quickly distorted into a horrible purple grimace and the eyes bulged hideously from their sockets.

There was but one spasmodic effort of the hands to clutch at the neck, a horrified eyewitness said, but for nearly five minutes the limbs jerked and quivered. He seemed to retain an extraordinary hold upon life. One who has seen numbers of men hung before, told me he had never seen so hard a struggle.⁵

He did not die easily, remarked another onlooker. The animal heat remained in his body . . . long.⁶

The execution of John Brown. KANSAS STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, TOPEKA

The minutes passed. The drama in the field continued as the stunned spectators stared in silence at the struggle between life and death. Eventually, the spasms and shudders grew less violent, then ceased altogether, and the body was at last at peace. Not a sound was heard, a spellbound viewer remembered, except the creaking of the timbers of the scaffold and the whipping sound of the wind, as it played with the naked branches of the trees.⁷

And so it was. The old man was no more. His end was also the final chapter in another story, a story which he had a large hand in writing. Like his life and death, the story is a violent one to relate—a story about blood and fire and war and how Americans learned to hate and kill each other. The old man was dead now, and nothing could start his feverish pulse pounding again. Of that, most on the field this day were heartily relieved, and some felt that for his terrible sins, he should and indeed would burn in hell forever and ever. Others though, beyond Virginia, beyond even America, believed that the old man’s spirit had taken wings when his body had fallen, and his soul was now soaring upward to a greater and grander glory.

[T]he man of strong and bloody hand, of fierce passions, of iron will, of wonderful vicissitudes . . . the man execrated and lauded, damned and prayed for, the man who in his motives, his means, his plans, and his successes, must ever be a wonder, a puzzle and a mystery. John Brown was hanging between heaven and earth.⁸

CHAPTER ONE

ISLANDS IN THE NIGHT

TOMORROW, I BELIEVE, THERE IS TO BE AN ECLIPSE OF THE SUN, AND I think that the sun in the heavens and the glory of this republic should both go into obscurity and darkness together. Let the bill then pass. It is a proper occasion for so dark and damning a deed.¹

Thus thundered Benjamin Wade of Michigan from the floor of the United States Senate. Even as the senator’s apocalyptic forecast was echoing through the upper chamber, a cloud of black betrayal was blanketing the North. For more than thirty years the dam known as the Missouri Compromise had held back the dark and dangerous waters of American slavery. Now, with repeal of that seemingly sacrosanct law, the dike had burst, and the vast unsettled domain west of the great rivers lay threatened with immediate inundation. The debate in Congress had been long and heated. The arguments against abrogation had seemed clear, concise, and convincing. As Wade and other antislavery senators were soon made to discover, however, the might of the South and its grip on Washington was virtually unbreakable. On May 30, 1854, with a stroke of the pen, the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was signed into life, and the Missouri Compromise was declared null and void. Henceforth, the law of the land would lay with the settlers themselves—should a majority in a new territory vote for slavery, then, upon admission to the Union, a slave state would join the ranks of the South. If free-soil was their choice, then the North would gain. The first test of this theory in popular sovereignty would come on the virgin plains of Kansas and Nebraska. And Benjamin Wade was stunned.

NEBRASKA TERRITORY

From the very birth of the nation, Americans had been painfully aware that human bondage was an anachronism in a republican form of government. The Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Rights of Man, liberty, freedom, justice—all seemed a mockery as long as one American remained enslaved. As the years passed there was hope that, in an increasingly industrialized world, slavery would die on the vine for want of sustenance. But suddenly, and paradoxically, a product of the mechanical age—the cotton gin—pumped new life into the system by making the cultivation of cotton vastly more profitable. Far from fading, slavery grew fourfold because of the invention, and by the 1840s the system was more firmly rooted than ever. Hopes in the antislavery North were raised by the Missouri Compromise and other measures aimed at halting the spread of the peculiar institution. If slavery could not be ended any time soon, they felt, perhaps it might be confined to a relatively small area and dealt with diplomatically in the not-too-distant future. But then came the thunderclap of repeal, and while Benjamin Wade and the North reeled in disbelief, many others, particularly in the South, rejoiced.

Since the signing of the Missouri Compromise in 1820, opinion had changed dramatically in the southern states. Equitable and fair though it may have seemed a generation earlier, the compromise and its restrictions were by 1854 viewed among many as unequal, unjust, and ultimately fatal to slavery. Barred on the north by the compromise line of 36° 30', locked out from the Pacific Coast by Free-States, only the bleak and barren sands of New Mexico Territory seemed a safe, if dubious, haven for slavery. To maintain the delicate political balance in an increasingly hostile Congress, new lands, new men, and new votes had to be won for the South. Some cast longing, warlike eyes to Mexico, Cuba, Nicaragua, and other tropic lands, but more were determined to meet the foe head-on and claim their fair share of the North American continent. Many Southerners had earlier commiserated with all Americans over the dilemma they faced regarding slavery, but by the middle of the nineteenth century human bondage had become such a fundamental part of their life that to talk of destroying the one was to talk of destroying the other.

As a siege mentality settled into southern minds with the passage of years, a suspicion and distrust for the rest of the nation correspondingly grew. It was a relatively small, strident group of emancipationists, however, for which slave owners held the deepest fear and loathing, and it was their actions more than any others that solidified southern sentiment against all Northerners. Centered in New England, many of these men and women saw war or disunion as the only salvation of the nation. Not content with containment, a few brain-sick abolitionists, through the pen and the lectern, even urged servile revolt. Others encouraged slaves to flee their masters and established underground railroads to aid the runaways in their flight to Canada, beyond the grasp of the Fugitive Slave Law.

As the assaults on slavery became increasingly strong and shrill, southern efforts to defend the system in turn became stronger and even more shrill. Let us declare, announced the Columbia (S. C.) Courier, that the very moment any private individual attempts to lecture us upon its evils and morality . . . in the same moment his tongue shall be cut out and cast upon the dunghill.²

[T]he gallows and the stake await. . . the abolitionist who should dare to appear in person among us, added a Charleston paper from the same state.³

As the circle closed tighter around the South, and as the menacing attacks of abolitionists continued apace, including all-out assaults by northern writers like Harriet Beecher Stowe, with her devastating antislavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, more and more Southerners saw secession as the only means of preserving their way of life. Then, with repeal of the Missouri Compromise, many in the Slave States thought that they saw for the first time in a generation a glimmer of hope and a peaceful way out of a spiraling situation.

As the impassioned words of Ben Wade had made dramatically clear, however, the scrapping of the sacred treaty was viewed in the North as more than a political maneuver; it was a breach of faith. With it came the sudden realization that the hunger of the slavocracy was insatiable. Too, there was a genuine fear that even the heretofore secure northern states might ultimately be strapped with slavery. Stunned disbelief soon gave way to flaming outrage. Wrote William Cullen Bryant of the New York Evening Post:

If this paper was three times its present size, and if it were issued three times its present size, and if it were issued three times a day instead of once, we could not then have space enough to record the action of patriotic meetings throughout the Northern States protesting against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill.⁴

In spite of the mass demonstrations, a general feeling of helplessness crushed many. Archabolitionist and editor William Lloyd Garrison paused momentarily to express the mood of the North, as well as his own deep despair.

The deed is done—the Slave Power is again victorious. . . . And so, against the strongest popular remonstrances—against an unprecedented demonstration of religious sentiment—against the laws of God and the rights of universal man—in subversion of plighted faith, in utter disregard of the scorn of the world, and for purposes as diabolical as can be conceived of or consummated here on earth—the deed is accomplished. A thousand times accursed be the Union which has made this possible!⁵

Though few and far between, some were not yet ready to surrender on Nebraska or even Kansas. Senator William H. Seward of New York was one. Come on then, gentlemen of the slave states! Seward growled defiantly from the floor of the Senate. Since there is no escaping your challenge, I accept it, in behalf of freedom. We will engage in a competition for the virgin soil of Kansas and God give the victory to the side that is stronger in numbers, as it is in right!⁶

Eli Thayer was another. Even as Seward was delivering his dramatic, defiant, though hopelessly hollow, challenge, Thayer was quietly at work, preparing to meet the peril head-on—not with ringing words or resolutions, but with men, money, and, above all, with action. While many in the North saw only doom and despair following passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, Thayer saw only opportunity. Unlike the armchair abolitionists and pessimists around him, who waged war on slavery with treatises, tracts, and high-sounding though impotent declarations, the Massachusetts businessman was a philanthropist who believed in deeds over words. From his Worcester office, Thayer devised a plan to deliver a devastating and perhaps lethal blow at slavery; he would drive an entering wedge into the new territories—a wedge of freedom. In words clear and unmistakable, Thayer charted his course.

[S]lavery was a great national curse. . . . [I]t practically ruined one-half of the nation and greatly impeded the progress of the other half. . . . [I]t was a curse to the negro, but a much greater curse to the white man. It made the slaveholders petty tyrants. . . . It made the poor whites of the South more abject and degraded than the slaves themselves. That it was an insurmountable obstacle in the way of the nation’s progress and prosperity. That it must be overcome and extirpated. That the way to do this was to go to the prairies . . . and show the superiority of free-labor civilization; to go with all our free-labor trophies; churches and schools, printing presses, steam-engines, and mills; and in a peaceful contest convince every poor man from the South of the superiority of free labor. That it was much better to go and do something for free labor than to stay at home and talk of manacles and auction-blocks and bloodhounds. . . . That our work was not to make women and children cry in anti-slavery conventions, by sentimental appeals, BUT TO GO AND PUT AN END TO SLAVERY.⁷

Anticipating the worst, Thayer had set to work even before repeal of the Missouri Compromise. As stated, the promoter’s plan was to literally transplant as much of New England to the plains as possible by forming a company of wealthy stockholders who would, for a profit, equip, pay passage, and establish colonies in the new territories. The focus of the New England Emigrant Aid Society would be Kansas. With the Free State of Iowa abutting Nebraska, there seemed small cause for concern in that quarter. Kansas was another matter. Straddled by the rough and raw Slave State of Missouri to the east, the full blast of the South would undoubtedly be aimed at Kansas. Here, then, Thayer rightly guessed, was to be the battleground, and here it was that antislavery colonies were to be situated. If such outposts could hang on and weather the initial southern storm, they could then serve as bulwarks for other free-soilers who came later from Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Should the plan succeed and should Kansas be admitted to the Union as a Free-State, not only would another territory be saved for freedom, but the political setback to the South might cause the entire structure of slavery to come crashing down.

Although a bold, exciting plan, it was one that some cautioned could not succeed. Many looked upon Eli Thayer as mad, and his project as madness, wrote a man who did believe, Dr. Charles Robinson. Who could be found to go to Kansas with the certainty of meeting a hostile greeting of revolvers, bowie-knives, and all the desperadoes of the border?⁸

Surprisingly, when Thayer made his plan public, a host of eager supporters rushed forth. Not only did subscriptions from wealthy patrons pour in, but hundreds of idealistic pioneers signed on. Many Northerners, Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune included, were thrilled by the simplicity of the scheme.

The plan is no less than one to found free cities and extemporize free States. . . . The contest already takes the form of the People against Tyranny and Slavery. The whole crowd of slave-drivers and traitors, backed by a party organization, a corrupt majority in Congress, a soulless partisan press, an administration with its law officers armed with revolvers, and sustained by the bayonets of a mercenary soldiery, will altogether prove totally insufficient to cope with an aroused people.⁹

I know people, added poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, who are making haste to reduce their expenses and pay their debts, not with a view to new accumulations, but in preparation to save and earn for the benefit of Kansas emigrants.¹⁰

The enthusiasm increased, reminisced Thayers treasurer, Amos A. Lawrence, and parties were formed all over the Northern States. The Emigrant Aid Company undertook to give character and direction to the whole."¹¹

At length, Charles Robinson continued, after great labor, a party of twenty-nine men, who were willing to take their lives in their hands . . . [prepared to leave]. These men were regarded with as much interest as would be a like number of gladiators about to enter into deadly conflict with wild beasts. . . .¹²

Charles Robinson KANSAS COLLECTION UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS LIBRARIES

Recalls a proud, if equally apprehensive, Eli Thayer:

This pioneer colony left Boston on the 17th of July, 1854. Immense crowds had gathered at the station to give them the parting godspeed and the pledge of their future cordial care. They moved out of the station amid the cheering crowds who lined the track for several blocks. The fact of this intense public interest impelled others to prepare to join the colony, intending to go one month later. . . . The emigrants remained in Worcester the first night and received a suitable ovation. . . . The next day I took charge of the party, and we were met in the evening at Albany by a good number of the citizens, who welcomed us with great cordiality. The next day we were cheered at all the principal stations as we passed on our westward journey. . . ,¹³

Although Thayer soon turned back to organize future efforts, the advance group continued on its mission to select town sites and smooth the way for those to come. Leading them west was the director’s trusted agent, Charles Robinson. A wiser and more sagacious man for this work could not have been found within the borders of the nation, praised Thayer of his lieutenant.¹⁴

Meanwhile, on the untamed plains of Kansas, proslavery Missourians were already rushing in. While much of the best bottom and timberland was owned by the Shawnee, Delaware, Kaw, Pottawatomie, and other reservation Indian tribes, white land seekers staked claims to most of the choice sites that remained. As was often the case, after laying down a token foundation of logs or rocks, the Missourians tacked notes of ownership to trees and promptly returned home, satisfied that their claims were secure.

If I find any damned rascal tearing this foundation down, ran a typical threat, I’ll cut his liver out.¹⁵

Understandably, many Missourians considered Kansas their birthright. Missouri wagons had left deep scars upon the plains to witness possession by the right of conquest, one observer explained, referring to the Santa Fe trade. Rightly the Missouri farmer . . . [viewed Kansas as] his particular domain; it belonged to him as new lands had traditionally belonged to settlers nearest their borders.¹⁶ And what belonged to Missouri belonged to the South. Slavery was already an established fact in the territory, with many Indians as well as missionaries owning chattel.¹⁷ In spite of the flaming eastern rhetoric, some Southerners felt a backroom deal had been cut in Washington whereby Kansas was secure for slavery and Nebraska safe for free-soil. It was only because of this understood if unspoken compromise, so the reasoning ran, that the balance of power in Congress could be maintained and the horrors of disunion and civil war avoided. Thus, when the first rumors reached the western border hinting that Eli Thayer was shipping Yankee mercenaries west to vote in the territorial elections, many Missourians initially laughed.

To the typical Missouri frontiersman, who considered himself half horse, half alligator and whose boast was that he could scream louder, jump higher, shoot closer, get drunker at night . . . than any man this side of the Rocky Mountains, the thought that clerks, peddlers, and white-livered Abolitionists from New England would dare tread the semisavage border to contest Kansas seemed a good jest, indeed. Humans were divided into three classes, sneered one Southerner. Yankees, niggers, and white people.¹⁸ As the tales of westering abolitionists became increasingly ominous, however, the proslavery laughter soon turned to concern . . . then anger . . . then threats.

Citizens of the West, of the South, and Illinois! growled the Weston Platte County Argus, stake out your claim, and woe be to the abolitionist. . . who shall intrude upon it, or come within reach of your long and true rifles, or within point-blank shot of your revolvers.¹⁹ In the same county, another murderous Missourian vowed that he would meet the Yankees on the border the moment they arrived and with my own hand help hang every one of them on the first tree.

Even as threats of doom were being uttered on the western border, over a thousand miles to the east, a second wave of the New England Emigrant Aid Society prepared to embark. As the sixty-seven men, women, and children boarded the train in Boston, they were urged onward with speeches, shouts, and a ringing rhetoric to match that of Missouri.

Down with the slavery extentionists and dough-faces. . . . No union with slave-holders. . . . Let us pour such an antislavery element into [Kansas] that whatever political success slavery may obtain there, the very atmosphere shall be pestilential to it; yea, that it shall feel. . . a fire burning in its very vitals, and destined speedily to consume it.

With John Greenleaf Whittier’s words wedded to Auld Lang Syne wafting sweetly in their ears, the antislavery emigrants turned hard, grim faces westward and made ready to war with slavery.

We cross the prairies as of old,

our fathers crossed the sea.

To make the West as they the East,

the homestead of the free.

As the bitter opponents moved closer to collision that summer of 1854, another movement, much quieter but much larger, was taking place. Indeed, in a mass migration reminiscent of the Gold Rush days, from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and other states of the old northwest, thousands of small farmers, merchants, and mechanics were unceremoniously packing family and furniture, setting their sights on Kansas. For most of these immigrants the opening of the territory was viewed not as an opportunity to either end or extend slavery, but as a chance to better themselves. As their mothers and fathers before them, the trek west was the defining event of their lives. The magic of rolling wheels, the thrill of new sights and sounds during the first days of travel, were experiences few pilgrims ever forgot.

Have passed beautiful green fields of wheat, and fine tall trees all in leaf, wrote a wonder-filled Miriam Colt from a westbound train in Ohio.

[H]ave seen gardens being made, and wild flowers blooming. Here is an apple tree close by the window, almost in full blossom—surely we are moving southward! southward! How quick the transition from winter to spring. . . . [H]ave travelled from snow banks and ice-bound streams, to green fields, leafy woods, smiling flowers, and the merry notes of birds.²⁰

And, as their parents before them had discovered, the emigrants’ first heady days of excitement and adventure rapidly gave ground to bone-jarring monotony and sleepless nights on impossible seats. Miriam Colts’ smiling flowers and merry notes of birds quickly succumbed to miserable fare and miserable, dirty beds.

KANSAS TERRITORY

Likewise, the rolling world of John J. Ingalls was soon colored gray and grim. [A]ll the railroad depots west of Cleveland are meaner than the one in Haverhill, if such a thing were possible, the young man groaned in a note to his father. The route of the railroad lies through a desolate, forlorn, unproductive-looking country, sparsely populated, poorly cultivated, interspersed with unhealthy forests and stagnant expanses of marshy waters.²¹

Unbeknownst to Ingalls, Colt, and thousands more traveling to Kansas, rough and rattling railroads were the easiest leg of the trip. Once the pioneers reached St. Louis, many opted to catch a Missouri River packet for the final pull to the territory. This, for most, was where the true trial began.

When we started from St. Louis, we began to think we were near the end of our journey, ran a typical emigrant’s letter, but the most tedious business that I ever engaged in was that. . . passage up the Missouri.²²

On new, swift craft, at high stage, a voyage up the Big Muddy to Kansas City could be accomplished in under a week. More commonly, however, a slow, aging tub, crammed with passengers, set sail on a shallow stream too dry for navigation and too wet for agriculture. Because of snags and sandbars, it was not uncommon for a trip west to take ten days, and a voyage of two weeks was not unheard of.

The Missouri is a strange river, at least it seems so to us Eastern people, scribbled Thomas Wells to those back home. Every few minutes we run against a snag which one would think would knock a hole through the bottom of the boat, and every day, and sometimes several times a day we are delayed from half an hour to three or four hours on a sand bar.²³

Wells went on:

This steamboating up the Missouri, when the water is as low as it is now, in a crowded boat is just the meanest way of getting along that ever I tried. By far the greater portion of us have to sleep on mattresses on the floor, and I believe that we should be more comfortable and less liable to catch cold if we slept out of doors. As it is I do not believe there are a dozen on board who have not taken a severe cold and I have not escaped.²⁴

As Wells noted, passengers without berths managed as best they could, either on deck or in the main dining cabin. Richard Cordley recalls his first night on board.

Reviews for War to the Knife

[hereandthere_1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

This is a particularly pernicious pro-slavery account, all the more shocking for having been written in 1998. It's shocking that human beings such as Thomas Goodrich roam the earth and publish the praises of noble slave holders who treated their slaves so well. Read this only as you would study a monster in a strange zoo, trying to understand how it thinks.

By the way, the phrase "War to the Knife" is a giveaway of this author's sentiments - "War to the knife, knife to the hilt" was a slogan of the proslavery forces in Kansas.